Post @KingJames-Gate, Is Twitter Ruining Pro Sports?
In the wake of the @KingJames-gate ‘karma tweet’ scandal, an interesting question has been posed in the minds of sports fans everywhere: what exactly is this Twitter beast doing to my beloved sports world?
Hours of broadcast television and radio were spent today talking about the seemingly targeted tweet by King James to his former team, the Cleveland Cavaliers as they took a 57-112 drubbing from the Los Angeles Lakers:
“Crazy. Karma is a b****.. Gets you every time. Its not good to wish bad on anybody. God sees everything!”
Within minutes of the tweet, the sports world and Twitter community was up in arms about it being rude, immature, selfish, and a pathetic attention grab by the former Cleveland star who is now part of the big three romping around in the Miami Heat. Skip Bayless, a commentator on ESPN's First Take who always has his ear to the ground in social media, especially Twitter, posted a handful of tweets of his own in about six hours about James' comments.
All this tweeting back and forth between public figures in sports, with the fans in tow, is starting to get out of hand as the Twitter beast takes a life of its own. Craziness and backlash are becoming a more and more consistent theme in the sports tweet community, and we haven’t even talked about the unofficial "King of Sports Tweeting," Chad Ochocinco.
If they would allow No. 85 to have a Twitter enabled device strapped to his arm like a QB’s play call armband, I have no doubt he would wear one every game. He is well known for taking everything in stride, speaking his mind, and overall creating his own little niche in sports of making them a little less serious and a little more fun.
However, with the number of kids who look up to players like him and King James, and who are growing up in the Social Media Generation, is this really such a good thing?
Twitter has been shown, in times of crisis, to have the capability to do some good. You needn't look farther back than the earthquake in Haiti last year to see the kind of good that kind of instant mass media can do when in the hands of some of the most famous and influential people in the country.
However, we've also seen the damage and insanity it can bring about, especially when involving celebrities, which would not exist to nearly the same extent without Twitter’s special brand of bite sized, instantaneous social media. A-list stars are easy fodder in gossip circles for the stupid, sometimes alcohol or drug induced, tweets they post.
The fans aren't safe from the disease either, as was seen in the past weeks with fans of Justin Bieber posting death threats on Selena Gomez’ Twitter page after the two allegedly started dating. These were preteen and young adult girls who were so outraged that they felt it necessary to wish harm on someone in such a way that all the world could see. Where previously they would have stewed, eventually coming to realize that it wasn't a big deal, this Twitter monster was available at arm’s reach to them to say essentially anything they wanted.
The concern isn't that sport will continue in a downward spiral to the Hollywood ranks as far as Twitter is concerned, the leagues and teams have addressed the issue by mandating standards of conduct in these types of media. The concern is that Twitter is turning the mainstream sports world into a one ring circus of star athletes who sometimes seem more interested in being seen as a celebrity and a pop culture icon than being known for the level of their play. Mainstream players are getting so caught up in the fight for center stage, they and their fans are often forgetting why they are in the spotlight to begin with: to be idols, role models, and legends in their respective sports, not to be famous just for being famous like so many celebrities are today.
These are highly trained and talented athletes who are paid millions of dollars every year to play a game, and it would nice to see them respecting the honor and privilege they have been given, due in part to all the hard work they have done, as opposed to acting like trained monkeys doing backflips and begging for the next minute in the spotlight from their adoring fans, regardless of what hoops they have to jump through to get it.
